


Letters

by in_motu_proprio



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Azkaban, Imprisonment, Love Letters, Lupin POV, M/M, Pining, Youth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 05:41:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1767550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/in_motu_proprio/pseuds/in_motu_proprio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything up to book five is included in some way.  Then I jump the shark.</p><p>Remus Lupin is cleaning out Severus' room at Hogwarts after he's fled and finds a box of letters Snape has written to Rabastan over the years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letters

**Author's Note:**

> This was written a LONG time ago, but I was going through an old journal and putting up some stuff from back then as a blast from the past!

It was one of those jobs that no one wanted. It was one of those jobs that the Order members actually avoided until they were so desperate for clues, it fell to Remus’ hands as was the status quo these days. He hated the fact that he was forced into Snape’s inner sanctum, despised the fact that he was being forced to finger through his things for any clues before they turned his dungeons into their new base of operation. 

Grimmenwald place had been leveled in a well-timed attack that had taken out Arthur and Molly and a great deal of the responsibility and the burden of leadership had fallen on Remus’ shoulders. It was up to him to make things right, to fish them out of the pathetic slump they were in because the pervasive mood was that they were going to lose the war this time. Remus hated to think about it, refused to most of the time, actually. He had to keep his mind positive or the fatigue that had been burdening his body since he’d stopped receiving his Wolfsbane would overtake him. 

It was with great reluctance that Remus Lupin took down the wards around Severus Snape’s former home at Hogwarts and stepped into the room. It was orderly to a fault, a place for everything and everything in its place. It made Remus smile, a rare event these days, but it was utterly predictable. Hell, the place looked as though it was waiting for Snape to come back. 

He started the unhappy task of sifting through this man’s life at Hogwarts in his bedroom, finding nothing of use, only a few potion’s journals, an empty sleeping draught bottle, and a reasonable amount of black clothes. 

He moved into the sitting room, starting in one corner and working his way around. On the top shelf, over the fireplace, behind a pile of books was an antique box. It had some heavy warding around it so Remus pulled it off the shelf and sat with it in the middle of the floor, wand out, working the wards back, peeling them off layer by layer until all he was left was the puzzle box itself. 

It was intricate, hand carved, obviously, and magical in its nature. Remus could feel Snape radiating off of the box and wondered if he’d made it himself. He shook the thought aside and worked on undoing the puzzle. That took longer than the wards, but finally, he was able to get a side open and out poured letters, more than should have been able to fit. They all had numbers in Snape’s neat scrawl in the upper right hand corner of the tri-folded parchment.

“Here goes,” he said to himself, picking up the one with the number one written and opening it. 

 

**************************************************

 

Rabastan,

A year, it's been a year since His fall and I sit here, up to my bloody ears in children's papers, wondering how it was that I was spared and you are still there. What was it that the Headmaster saw in me? What was imminently more salvageable in me than in you, or countless others like us? Was it my talent because, surely, there are others with talents in other things far greater. Regardless of any talent I have in Potion's, it has lost its luster. I find no joy in any one thing with you there.

It is a selfish thing to write that I, with all the freedoms you lack (or most of them at least), sit here complaining that nothing has it's shine, that I can't glean any joy from a single thing. I have read that it can be a side effect from that place. If that is true, having been in there almost a year now, I have a worry more intense and consuming for your own sanity than of mine and its conceived loss of pleasure in the trivial. I wonder what it’s done to you. I worry that its broken you already and even if I do find something that will help your case, some loophole, some inconsistency in the trial or sentencing that might at least get you time out of that place for another trial, that it will not matter. 

It cuts me to the quick to think that there is a real and strong possibility that the spark behind your eyes, that mischievous little glint that always brought goose bumps up along my neck has been irrecoverably lost. I cannot fathom speaking to you and not seeing that there. To have you mirthless would be something more than I could stand. It would be a dagger to the heart, worse than if they'd just given you the Kiss because, in a way, if you lose that spark in this way, they've won. They succeeded in breaking you. The thought of Rabastan Lestrange a broken man makes me consider the ceremonial dagger on my mantle.

It is now, years later, that I remember the eleven year old prince that strode into the common room, surveying his domain. I suppose it is safe now to tell you that I always considered you the more dangerous, the more interesting of the Lestrange brothers because yours was a beguiling interest while that others held for Rodolphus was one based in fear. People wanted to know you because of who you are. They wanted to continue in your acquaintance because of what kind of a man you were becoming. 

From that first day, despite the fact that I was the elder, I was fascinated. You, as far as I was (and continue to be) concerned, are the most interesting person this school has turned out in a very long while. We were so different and perhaps, that was why you fascinated me so. You found so many unworthy of your interest or affections and shut them out without a thought while I whored myself to the masses. Your family was beyond reproach while mine was barely noticeable. I was all sharp angles and gangly limbs, you a prince descended from upon high. People would have given their left arm to say they'd slept with you, Rab, and you closed the door without a thought. It is safe to say, since you will never receive this letter, that I wanted, desperately, to have the courage to have at least tried to be someone you'd push away in the vain hope that maybe you wouldn't. 

The thought that, perhaps, if the moment just right, the lighting not making my hair look greasier or nose larger than it actually is, it might have a chance. How utterly girlish. The whiskey glass is heavy in my hand and I find my thoughts loosed more than I'd normally allow. Did you know I took up drinking the swill simply to have something to remind me of you? Utterly ridiculous, isn't it? Anything, it seems, that will get my memory closer to you is something I'll try. I've even a few of your hairs, left over from one of your drunken sleep-overs no doubt, that I've considered making into a Polyjuice and giving to a whore. Anything at this point would sate some of this loneliness. 

Now I'm simply getting too bloody maudlin for my own good, for either of us really. All of this, though, my loneliness, the ache at knowing that your still there, all of it seems horribly selfish when you are living through that hell. I haven't another thing to say. Nothing matters in light of the way things are.

Yours,

Severus

 

 

**************************************************

 

To say that Remus was in shock was an understatement. He proceeded to the next letter, his curiosity piqued. There was no two, no three, hell there was no 200 0r 300, just one with a 419 written in the corner. It was next, though, and he opened, reading Severus’ careful scrawl.

 

**************************************************

 

Rabastan,

The bloody Christmas holidays make my skin crawl. The muggle indulgences wizards indulge in, passing off crackers and presents, the worst being the singing of Christmas carol's (something about a reindeer with a red nose), makes me nauseous. Twittering children giggling as they pass their friends well sought after gifts from Honeydukes or Flourish and Blotts... oh, the sounds of the season. I think I shall take a headache tonic.

I can't help but think of you at this time of year. It always seemed to hold a special place with you despite the utter ridiculousness of the events. Yule had just happened and there were delicious treats for that, then what I've always imagined as a stunning holiday at Lestrange Manor. I'm sure you, the youngest son, were doted on, given all the gifts in the world, treats, and the family would come over, pinch your cheeks or embrace you, the silver prince of the family. I imagined your holidays to get me through my own. I stopped going home around fifth year, claiming I was staying to work. I stayed to have a respite from my father.

I remember him before my mother died, before he took up the drink. He was a caring father, kind, doting and I loved him very much. It changed, all of it, when mother died. She passed and it was as though his will to live was siphoned right out of him with her final breath a continent away. They were completely devoted to each other and, while it is nearly fairytale in nature, it was ideal to grow up in my first eleven years. She passed in January of my second year when you and I were just getting to know each other. 

He didn't get out of bed for days, couldn't even plan her funeral. I was home for the holiday, had been supposed to go with her as a matter of fact, and ended up being the one to pick out her clothes, plan it all. I think about it now and look at my second years, wondering if they could do it, if they've done anything even remotely like that.

My aunt, a woman much like Mrs. Black, made quite the fuss over the flowers, I remember. Something about my mother not being so common as lilies and that was where it seemed to turn for me. From her death until that comment, he'd all but ignored me, which was fine as far as I was concerned. He was useless in planning for her funeral and I was furious with him. She encouraged him to take me out of the funeral and be teach me a lesson. It was the first time he cried for her, beating me with the serving ladle from the soup tureen. 

I don't know that I've ever grieved properly after that, whatever properly means in a sentence about the greatest loss of my childhood. It's a selfish thing to say, cruel to her memory, but I don't know that I'm even capable anymore. 

He passed away tonight and I know I can't grieve him. If anything, and it's sick to say it, but it's a relief. He was killing himself slowly with drink for nigh on ten years, desperate to join her and he has at last. It's been seven hundred and twenty-three days without you and I'm starting to understand why he turned to drink.

Yours,

Severus

**************************************************

Severus was obsessed with Rabastan Lestrange. Bits and pieces of it started to make sense for Remus. He had always wondered about Severus, what he did, why he didn’t see anyone while they were in school, why he’d remained alone all these years. Of course, it was assumed that his personality and personal hygiene had a lot to do with it, but it appeared that there was an entirely different reason for the man’s constant darkness. He was pining away for a lost lover. 

It seemed incongruous with what he knew of Severus, but the proof lay right there in his hands. He set the second, well 419th, letter aside and picked up the next in the stack, wondering if the ones between the first and the 419th were anywhere to be found, what they contained. 

Next was the 1325th and Remus’ need to figure this all out, to figure the man himself out, was more than piqued. 

 

**************************************************

 

Rabastan,

Regret is a funny thing. It can cloud your vision of things you know, cloud your memories, and I wonder now what my memories even mean in the grand scheme of things. 

I don't know if you know, but I have a family home in England. It's tied up in red tape, bureaucrats who think they can use it as a bargaining chip to continue to exploit me. Little do they know I’m already nestled firmly under Dumbledore’s thumb and have little recourse. I have no doubt that I will be returned there in the end, though, when things are set to rights. Why tell you that? Because I am stuck here. I haven't the bloody Galleons to leave this place, most of them are tied up in my mother's estate, the rest drunk down by my worthless father. Do I want pity? No. I just want, more than I want my next breath, for the ghosts of my past to stop haunting my every waking moment. 

I've been teaching at this sodding school too long. It's full of ghosts, full of our childhoods, Rab. I can nearly feel it on my skin when I walk through the Slytherin dorms, nearly feel the sweet-sticky breath you'd breathe on my cheek when you'd had bit too much to drink and we'd fall into bed together, never more than your head tucked into the space under my chin and above my shoulder, but more meaningful than any sex I’ve ever had. I wonder why it is that I wasn't lucky enough to get caught with a good Killing Curse in the chest some days. What's my sodding higher purpose? Why, other than to be a foil for every goody-goody prat Gryffindor that files through the doors, did I survive this? Why am I here and you there? 

Everywhere I turn there's another taunt, not memories of the Gryffindor fuckwits, memories of you. You've become my touchstone over the years. I write to you every day, knowing you'll never see these, but I have to because if I don't I'm sure I'll go utterly mad. I see the place we sat in the dark, hexing younger years and making them think it was the bloody baron in my third year. Then there's that room up on the fourth floor where we got drunk together for the first time. Not to mention, of course, my old room. It's now inhabited by this utter waste of skin, Miles Bletchley. He's this atrocious sixth year who thinks the world rises and sets on his arse. You'd despise him, by the way. He mars the memories we put so much work into making in that room.

The upcoming crop of Slytherin's, despite being horribly thin, is a lot of dunderheads, hardly better than their Gryffindor counterparts. There's not even one, single, good rivalry happening to entertain myself with. No blood spilt over a mutual lover, no hexes thrown over a blood slur, nothing. These children are simply the most boring lot I've ever seen. They are not you, they are not me, they are not any of us who are rotting away now in prisons of our own making or those imposed on us. 

Yours, 

Severus

**************************************************

 

Remus closed the letter, shifting against the rug under him, wondering about the man that he thought he’d had a grasp on. He had always thought Snape dark and brooding, awful, rotten to his very core, but perhaps there was a reason. He’d not known about his father, not known that he’d lost his mother in second year, deciding that that explained the time he’d found Snape in the greenhouses, looking as though he had no clue where or when he was. Remus had left him that day and wondered if Rabastan had cared for him that day, if anyone had taken the time to counsel the young Slytherin on the loss of his mother. 

The sadness that was belied in Severus’ letters was almost too much for Remus, almost too much for him not to open the 1696th letter…. Almost. 

 

**************************************************

 

Rab,

It's pretty well sewn up that Slytherin is going to win both the house and Quiddich cup. We've played our last game and trounced Gryffindor, so the Quiddich cup is ours for sure. So long as my snakes don't do anything terrible in the interim, they'll win. This might be a first in Slytherin history, no end of the year pranks so they don't jeopardize the cup. 

I wish you were here.

Yours,

Severus

 

**************************************************

 

It was short, succinct, and didn’t fit with the rest of the letters. Snape always seemed to have more to say when he was upset than happy. Or, was that Snape happy? He opened the one labeled 2649 and read.

 

**************************************************

 

Rabastan,

I've just finished licking Lucius' boots at his, thrown by himself, 35th birthday party. Lovely, isn't it, how we can honor ourselves like that? Gods, he's such a self-centered, egotistical fuck. It isn't that which I fault him for. It's the way he tosses it around, as though he were the end all be all of wizarding England. And his child, gods, but isn't he Lucius' little clone! It's nearly sickening to see them move together. It's as though one is an extension of the other, some sort of symbiotic interconnectedness there that I simply can't put my finger on. 

I did a touch of a read on the child. Now, don't think me terrible for doing that to a child, he was simply asking for it, staring at my nose like that. Vapid as the day is long, that one is. I nearly hope that, for my own sanity, and as a little sod off to Lucius, that he's sorted into Hufflepuff. Either that child is going to have to sharpen up and Lucius is actually going to have to stand up to Narcissa and make her stop coddling the child, or he'd better get used to mediocre grades and Hufflepuff yellow and black. 

I'll be stuck with the child either way, I'm sure. (Not that Lucius would ever allow such a scandal as a Malfoy being sorted into Hufflepuff, but a head of house can dream, can't he?) Did I tell you that I was made head of house? I don't remember and, frankly, I've had about sixteen too many of Lucius' good scotch, so it doesn't really matter. Three years ago now I was made head of house. I'm still not allowed to teach the Dark Arts, but I'm allowed to tend the flock as it were.

Irony never ceases to bite me in the arse.

Yours, 

Severus

 

**************************************************

 

It made Remus laugh, the way that Snape talked about Lucius Malfoy. It was good to know, Remus thought, that Snape hadn’t liked him, had thought, pretty much, the same thing that everyone else had thought about the son of a bitch. 

It had been a year now since Lucius was Kissed and the world, though still tragic, was a better place for the lack of him. It got Remus to wondering again where Snape had gone with Draco. They’d searched Spinner’s End and found nothing, the house barren inside, not so much as a hair or a fingernail, as though the place hadn’t ever been inhabited. It was scarily clean and Remus wondered then, as he did now, if the Potion’s Master was still alive or if he’d vexed Voldemort and ended up dead. 

 

**************************************************

 

Rabastan,

The Boy Who Lived has been sent his letter. Actually, he's been being sent letters for weeks now. The Headmaster is starting to show signs of wear that the muggles the Potter brat lives with aren't letting him have his Owls. He's sent the halfwit groundskeeper to dispatch the letter personally. If that doesn't get the muggles attention, he will likely go there himself. Yet again, the world stops turning on its bloody axis for a Potter. 

I have fulfilled my commitment to the Headmaster this year and tendered my resignation but was refused. How a letter of resignation can be refused, I don't know, but it was and he assured me in that kind way of his that should I seek employment elsewhere, I'd be denied. I am stuck here, more now than I have ever been. If I leave it's starve in the gutter. If I stay it's another generation of Potter's to make my life hell. I hate this child for the blood he carries in his veins even if I've never even seen him. I'm sure he looks like his prat father, likely as full of himself too. 

I could spit sodding teeth I'm so furious! I am relegated to this position, again, teaching a load of twits something they have no desire to learn about and the new Dark Arts teacher is a stuttering fool! The ignorance of this prat astounds me and yet there is something about him. Something about this Quirrel prat is terribly familiar and I can't put my finger on it. Have you felt your mark twinging? Do you think it could mean that He is still with us? 

I'm a bloody dead man if that's a fact. 

Yours,

Severus

 

**************************************************

 

I’m a bloody dead man if that’s a fact. Remus read it three times. Why would Snape think himself a dead man if he thought Voldemort alive. Remus tucked that letter into his pocket, meaning to bring it back to the remaining Order members… perhaps it meant that Snape hadn’t been loyal, wasn’t put into his spot at Hogwarts to make them all more vulnerable when the time came. 

Remus, for the first time in a very long time, had a little hope. Despite his hatred of most people, his interpersonal issues with nearly every member of the order, Snape was a better ally than an enemy.

 

**************************************************

 

Rab,

If that halfwit Black can escape that place, so can you. I swear on my mother's memory that when you do I will make you mine by whatever means are necessary. If I have to wait until the day before I die to kiss you for the first time it will be worth it because you still will have been mine even if just for that moment.

Come home to me.

I remain yours,

Severus

 

 

**************************************************

 

The letter made Remus blush. He thought about Snape, so passionate in that moment that he’d actually torn the paper on the word die. He wondered if that spark behind his eyes in meetings, when he’d still been with the Order, had been his passion, not his hatred. 

Remus fingered over the edges of the letter and closed his eyes, the emotion nearly tangible on the parchment. It was astounding, especially considering that Snape had always been though of as rather morose and unfeeling in most things. He really had or did love Rabastan, it seemed. 

 

 

**************************************************

 

Rab,

Black was so close to getting the Kiss tonight. I nearly got the Order of Merlin, First Class and that brat, Potter, mucked it all up. I got fantastically drunk as I smashed every bloody thing made of glass in my workroom and it's still not abated any. I've got glass in my shin and in my hands and I don't sodding care. There's blood drops on this letter now and, while it smudges the ink, I don't particularly care. It's all Potter, Black, and that feckless werewolf's fault. 

I'll fix him up, Lupin. I wasn't able to do anything while I was in school with the prat, that useless bag of skin that tried to kill me got away with naught but a slap on the wrist. I let Draco Malfoy know what he is. It won't be dawn before the owls start arriving and he's run out of here with sodding torches. I think I'll watch from the tower. 

He escaped. Black, that is. Why haven't you? He came out for Pettigrew, our resident animagus and, apparently, the one who gave up the Potter's location to the Dark Lord. He got out for Potter, too, for his godson. Is there nothing you'll fight to get out of that place for? Have they broken you utterly? 

I tried again recently to petition the Ministry on your behalf. The Headmaster intercepted the owl and forbade it in exactly those words. "Severus, petitioning on his behalf is madness. I forbid you from contacting the Ministry over Lestrange." Granted, I was and still am drunk, but it was a well-written letter offering that I would take your place. How disgustingly chivalrous, right? 

At this rate, I figure the Dementor's would be a welcome release from the iron grip the Headmaster has on my bollux. And, maybe, there would be the added bonus of passing you in the hall on my way in as you found your freedom. I'd do it if I could just stroke your cheek again at this point. I'm a simpering, sickening, likely mentally ill, mess. I hate myself and see no reason that you would feel anything other than that same hate for me.

Yours, 

Severus

 

**************************************************

 

He hated seeing Snape write about him like that, that even decades later he still overflowed with venom at the worst day of Remus’ life. Remus had apologized every which way, begging for Snape’s mercy then, but had received nothing but a cold stare. 

He still carried that around, still clung to it and that made Remus’ stomach clench. Well, that and the fact that Snape was to the point of goading Rabastan in his letters. He wanted him that badly that he’d resort to that, that his anger, his frustration, his sadness, had finally boiled over, it seemed. 

 

**************************************************

 

Rab,

It's the Yule celebration and I'm sitting in the middle of the floor of my quarters writing you. The children are two floors up in the Great Hall having the leaving feast and I simply can't bring myself to go. I'll get a tray sent down to me tonight and a chastising little speech about taking care of myself in the morning, but if I go up there I'm likely to hex my way through the Gryffindor table before they'd be able to stop me. While this, in and of itself, is a good idea, it takes effort. I haven't the energy.

Do you even remember your own name anymore? Can you still walk? Do you still have any sort of a sense of humor? I wonder if you breathe every breath hating me. You were in that place when I gave up any information and, even then, it was days of the Headmaster talking to me, trying to convince me, trying to save my soul. There's nothing to save anymore, I'm quite sure.

These maudlin musings disgust me. I disgust myself, the simpering sad ball of humanity I've become. I went through and purged most of these almost 5,000 letters. In small quarters, and believe me they're really rather merge, there was hardly room for them. I don't know why I kept the ones I have, why I decided they would be the best to hold onto, but there were some I couldn't rid myself of. These letters to you are really my journal. I've essentially given up the other form of journal. It's tucked away in my top drawer and I think the last entry is something circa 1977. I journal notes about Potions, observations that I've made with a detached scientific eye, but I can't stand to have something like these letters around, something so sickeningly introspective that I'm sure I'll be able to see my spine through all this bloody navel gazing. 

I haven't touched my violin in nearly a year. I haven't touched another man in three. I can't go on like this any longer. No one will ever be you but I can't just continue existing like this. I'm the last Snape and the thought of marrying some widowed woman my age and having an heir has crossed my mind. I don't know that I couldn't really do it but I'm trying to move on. It feels like something in my gut is being ripped out every time I even consider it and I think that that's my sign that you might still be hanging on in there. Every time I consider it I kick myself and think that it would be my ironic luck that you'd break out the day of my wedding to some woman I can't even look at. 

The end result of this letter is the same as every other. I am filled with regret that you went to that place not knowing how intensely I feel for you. I am drunk. I am barefoot because it reminds me of you. I have ink splotches all over my hand and a lump in my throat. I mourn you for a second, hate you for two because you are still there despite Black's continuing freedom, and love you for ten. I think, in the twelve years I've been writing these letters that's the first time I've written that word to you. 

I'm a thirty-four year old man. Thirty-four. You are Thirty-three and have been in that place for twelve years. I know, logically, that there's no way you can be whole coming out of that place whenever you do. You'll either come back half the man you were or dead. I'm thirty-four, drunk, and madly in love with you. 

Yours, 

Severus

P.S.- Have you heard that Sonata as you read the letter? That was your Yule gift from me. I've gotten you something every year. You’re the only person I buy for. You’re the only one that's ever meant enough for me to spend that time on. I played for the first time in a year and will be with another man by the end of the week. I am sorry. 

 

**************************************************

 

Remus reached up to his eyes, wiping furiously. He tried to convince himself, for a second, that he was not crying over Snape’s letter, that he was not crying over the way Snape’s thoughts echoed so many of his own when Sirius was in the very same place Rabastan was. 

There was a desperate edge to Snape’s melancholy that made Remus’ stomach ache, that made him want to curl up in a ball on the floor and cry for his own lost years with Sirius, for his own ache, so deep, so consuming that he’d considered the tip of his wand too many times to calculate. 

He saw in that moment, the music of Snape’s violin flooding the room, that they were more alike than different, and that made him cry all the more. 

 

**************************************************

 

Rab,

He is back. Do you feel your arm burn even in that place. It's doubly horrid now. He's this half creature, this skeletal, red eyed thing, not our Lord. That rat Pettigrew found a way to bring him back and it's going to start all over again. I was sure he was gone, positive my tenure as an information conduit was over, prayed that it was true. It seems fate is simply not that kind. 

I ache from head to toe. It's been years since I was treated to a good Crutatius Curse and, lord, does he still have it. It was nearly a welcome back, Snape... long time, no see. He played for a bit but, thank Merlin, tired easily and I'm left just tending my wounds and not being entombed in the Prince crypt. He found out what I did after his fall. He's said he forgives me, though I wonder if it's true or simply some ploy to lure me closer before he snaps the trap and I'm caught. 

My Occlumancy skills, apparently, are up to snuff, though. He was infuriated that he could get nothing but the most banal Potion's directions from my mind. I let slip a bit about Lupin and, while it may get him killed, it was worth it to be able to breathe for a minute. I always was his favorite chew toy, though, so what am I to expect. Your name was envoked, though. You, Rodolphus, and Bellatrix... he's pleased with what you did in his name so, if he finds a way to help free you, at least you'll be safe from his tender mercies. 

It hasn't hit me, yet, I suppose, that one of my students was killed tonight. I never was partial to the Diggory boy, a Hufflepuff and too kind for my tastes, but a student nonetheless. I haven't lost a student since right after I became a teacher. I'll be expected to go to his services as a part of the school contingent, though I don't know that the family will be terribly thrilled to have a suspected former Death Eater in their presence. Sometimes I think it's part of the Headmaster's plan to drive me slowly insane. 

The only good thing that could possibly come from his rebirth is the renewed hope that he will repay your service to him with your freedom from that place. 

Yours,

Severus

 

**************************************************

 

Snape had given him up to Voldemort, Remus thought, nearly wanting to crumple the letter in his hands. He re-read, paying attention to the writing. Snape’s hand had faltered in several places, leaving ink blots, leaving smudges where other letters had been pristine. He was hurting when he wrote that and it was painfully obvious that even through that pain, he’d been intent to get his thoughts down. 

He wondered if Snape’s words were true, that this was more of a diary for him at this point than anything, Rabastan his muse.

 

**************************************************

 

Rab,

Today I turned thirty-six. The Headmaster sent me veela blood as a gift. It was thoughtful and unexpected. I'm sure the other shoe will drop and I'll be asked to do something for him with it eventually. Just watch, five years from now the old man will want a veela blood based headache tonic or something. 

The children weren't back from their holidays so I spent the greater portion of my day wandering the castle. It's unlike me to be so aimless but, in all honesty, my concentration was not there, therefore any attempt to start on a potion would have been disastrous. 

I wonder about you all the time. It consumes my idle time, of which there is not much, but there it is. I wonder, with him reborn, if your escape from that place is imminent and, if it is, what you will think of this older, wiser version of myself. Have you thought of me even once in that place, or did the Dementor’s take that from you? Was I even one of your happy memories to take? I cannot focus as of late and, for me, that can prove disastrous. I am walking a rather thin tightrope between Dumbeldore’s leash and the Dark Lord’s. I fear, every day, that I will tumble from it before I get to see you.

Yours, 

Severus

 

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Rabastan was Snape’s obsession, it was what kept him going, it seemed. It disturbed Remus on some level that the man who had once verbally assaulted him over pining over Black’s death had been obsessed with the same man for almost 14 years. He wondered if they were together now, if they were both dead, if Rabastan had resented Snape so much that when he got out he’d wanted nothing to do with him. 

Remus hated unanswered questions and proceeded to the next letter, hating that there were only a few left. He had this hunger now, wanted to keep peering inside Snape’s brain. This was all too fascinating, too disturbing.

 

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Rabastan,

That boy, that sodding, fecking, useless boy will get himself killed before he can be put to any use. Potter is, of course, the boy to whom I refer. Once again, he has been bending the rules to his whim. It’s always him, doing something stupid. Him going in to retrieve the Sorcerer’s Stone, using magic out of school, him blowing his aunt up, or him finding some way to save the day simply because he feels it’s a necessary thing to do despite the fact that he perpetually puts himself into stupid situations that will end up killing him. Dumbledore’s saved him, yet again, finding it cute or entertaining or endearing or any other nauseating adjective he may chose to ascribe to the idiot boy. 

Do you remember the way your mother went wild when you let that stream of magic lose at Rodolphus in your fifth year? It was another one of those underaged wizarding things, though purebloods always seemed exempt from the ministry’s scrutiny in that regard. I remember that Rodolphus started that year with overly long hair thanks to you, though he never would explain what had happened to the rest of his gang. It always made me feel special, as though I had true meaning, that the first thing you did upon entering the Great Hall that September was to pull me aside and tell me, in detail, what you’d done. 

I was so proud of you that day, good gods. I wanted to hug you, but held myself back. It’s moments like that and so, so, so many others that float through my mind when I find myself filled with regret. All I can think is ‘what if….’ 

What if I’d hugged you that day? Would you have hugged back? You were always more openly demonstrative than your brother, you’d probably have thought nothing of it. 

What if I’d kissed you one of the times you fell into my bed, drunk, looking for a warm body to wrap around? I imagine that you’d have been shocked at first, but then it digresses into a fantasy of you kissing me back, us touching, loving each other in a way I find myself desperate for. It’s not to say that I don’t have sex, I do, and I’ve been able to stay relatively guilt-free over it because it is a natural human need, but to truly be with you, to have your eyes, your hands, your body… it’s too much. 

I have digressed into the dottering fantasies of an old, now apparently perverted, man. 

Yours despite my failings

Severus

 

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Severus’ resentment of Harry, his resentment of James was no secret, but to see it put down in print like that, to nearly see him make the connection between Harry doing underaged magic and Rabastan, someone he loved so deeply, doing the same was a bit scary. 

There was an edge of desperation to the end of the letter that showed how gone Snape really was. He wondered if Snape had thought himself a romantic, because that was certainly how it was coming across. Daydreams, fantasies about Rabastan to the point where he couldn’t concentrate? The need for the other man was obvious and now that Remus thought back on all the time he’d known Snape, the fact that he was obsessed with something, not necessarily someone, was obvious. He was a man to over focus, and it seemed that that over focusing had been laid at Rabastan Lestrange’s feet all these years. 

 

 

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Rabastan,

I do not have any empathy for Harry James Potter. I will begin with that sentiment, right off the bat. Despite what I’ve seen, I still feel that the stupid boy is just that, a stupid boy who takes after his dolt of a father in far, FAR too many respects. 

That being cleared up, it’s disturbing what kind of childhood he’s led. The Headmaster had always made reference, would comment here and there, but until I actually, really, got inside the boy’s head, I had no idea. Of course I’ve read him before, but nothing invasive, nothing to the point where he’d notice. I couldn’t risk revealing that… besides, it would ruin my whole mysterious nature. 

His bastard muggle relations truly are abysmal people. I do so very hope that the Dark Lord makes them a target because after what I saw, I’d volunteer for the pleasure of taking them apart piece by piece. 

Understand, though, that it’s not because I have compassion for Potter… gods no, it’s because their kind have put down our kind far too much. The need is great for them to be put in their place and it would be my pleasure and honor to make that lot an example for muggles who’d do the same. 

Of course, seeing his childhood made me reflect on mine. 

I have no compassion for Harry James Potter, no empathy, no sympathy, because we make of our lives what we can, but I simply hope that he is brighter than I was in some respects and accepts the affection that twiddling twat Weasley girl has for him before its too late and he’s writing his own batch of letters. 

Did you love me? Even in your own way, even if it wasn’t romantic? I continue to reflect on the fact that, every time you got pissed drunk, you ended up in my bed, half naked, wrapped around me. I always thought it simply something you did, that you were looking for protection or affection from a friend, certainly that you weren’t looking for me to kiss you, to touch you, to be yours. Why in the name of the gods would one such as you have wanted me? I cannot continue on this line of thought. Of course you didn’t want me. How could you have? It’s preposterous and I shall expunge any consideration of that thought presently. 

Yours,

Severus

 

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Regret filled Remus for every time he’d been able to touch Sirius that he didn’t, every moment he’d not spoken to him after Siri had tried to use him in his prank on Snape. He despised that he’d been a pawn, but now that Sirius was gone, despised the wasted time he’d used up on being mad. It wasn’t worth it and, like Snape, he’d give anything to get that time back. 

He chose not to acknowledge that Snape had affection for Harry, however misrepresented it had been over the years and tucked that letter away as well, intending to give it to Harry when the time was right. It was his right to know that Snape didn’t hate him. Remus thought it important, very important, especially as he came to realize that Snape’s true alliance was to Rabastan, not to Voldemort. He wondered who’d been the first of them to join, if Snape had joined to be closer to Rabastan or if he truly, truly believed in their cause. 

 

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May 9th 1996, 5000th letter

 

Rabastan,

It’s been nearly 14 years since you went to that place. You cannot be you coming out, and I’ve accepted that. It is with that thought that I commit my blood and my magic to this page, binding myself to your fate. Whatever you come out of that place as, if you are a husk of your former self, if you are little more than a walking corpse, I will care for you. It is my pledge and my blood that you will, when you emerge, not be alone. I will be yours in whatever respect you wish me to be.

Bound to you,

Severus

 

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For a man given to grand gestures, this was the top, Remus thought. Snape had bound himself to Rabastan, it seemed, because the paper glowed with dark magic, Snape’s blood tingeing the edges. 

He wondered if that was where Snape was now, tending to Lestrange or if he was under Voldemort’s heel, still unable to do as he wished, even in his supposed freedom from the Order and the Headmaster. This bloody man was more complicated than he’d ever realized.

 

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Rabastan,

The news trickled down slowly that it had happened, that you were, in fact, freed today. I have no clue where you are, and despite a rather forceful owl to Lucius, still have no clue. So it leaves me here, sitting in the middle of my floor, needing to find you. 

I have not felt a desperation this tangible since the first day you went into that place. The Headmaster knows that you, Rodolphus, and Bella are free, too, which puts me in a doubly precarious position. If I do search for you, I could endanger you, I could end up being the one to cause your death, all over my desperation to touch you, to see that you live and breathe. 

I’ve considered so many things this night, all about you. It occurs to me that everything, every waking moment, despite the overlying factors of brats and my life as a double agent, that it all boils down to you in the end. I could have walked out of here when my debt was paid to the Headmaster, could have starved in the gutter or whored myself, but I had to remain as I am for you, because there was some small chance on the horizon, always just out of reach, that I might find you and, that once I did, that I might be able to close my hand around yours and simply be for the first time since my mother died. 

I long to just sit with you, gather you into my arms, and be. 

Come to me when it is safe, come to me as whatever you have become and I shall still love you.

Yours,

Severus

 

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Remus turned the box over, reaching inside, looking for more. There had to be more. It couldn’t end like that, he thought, standing, looking around the room. Was there another box with another set of letters? No, Snape wouldn’t scatter them. He’d kept these so carefully, all in pristine condition, as though they’d not seen the better part of two decades. 

He sat again, taking the two letters he’d pocketed and put them back into the stack, feeling as though he’d stepped all over this painfully private man’s sanctuary as it was. Remus was among the few who, in his heart of hearts, did not believe Snape to be inherently evil. He still felt rather like the Headmaster had, that he had the ability to be redeemed. He wondered if, at the moment, Snape was free to find his redemption in Rabastan’s arms or if he was still tied to his life of wanting more, needing the man but not having him. 

He wondered if Snape would even be able to take advantage of the opportunity were it right in front of him or would he hide as he seemed to have in school? 

With a deep sigh and a groan as he stood, Remus replaced the box on the shelf, tucking it in behind the books, just in case the owner of the letters or the man to whom they were written would ever come to claim them.


End file.
